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TJ Expert (97)

Home Makeover Spotlight

Home Makeover Spotlight

Exterior: Subtle Sophistication with Asian Elegance

Mangaris Red Hardwood Decking

The Mangaris Red hardwood decking transformed a once bland exterior to a rich, mahogany-colored one, with a matching, Japanese-style gate. Mangaris decking wood was also used to build up the front exterior wall by 18 inches, giving the front yard, pool, and entrance both a higher level of beauty and of privacy.

Yoga & Wellness Advocate

Yoga & Wellness Advocate

JUDIT TOROK

A regular visitor to Tokyo, New York City- based yoga instructor and interculturalist Judit Torok shares her techniques for alleviating big city stress.

Fight Off Stress with Your Breath

Imagine you have an acquaintance, a person you've known for a long time - perhaps as long as you can remember. He comes to you house any time, uninvited, and stays for as long as he wants. Rude and inconsiderate, he imposes his presence on your life, makes a mess and doesn’t leave. You try to be nice at first and reason with him, but he only gets more annoying with time. You try to ignore him or even pick a fight, but he comes right back again and again. This unwelcome and annoying acquaintance is called stress.

Through the Eyes of Yankelovich

Through the Eyes of Yankelovich

Tokyo 5

In the coming months, people in America and Japan should expect a lot of discussion on a topic that may at first glance seem like technical economics, but is in fact a red-hot political issue whose consequences are hard to exaggerate.

The topic is whether or not our capitalist systems are undergoing a lasting structural change. Are we inadvertently shifting from forms of capitalism that are compatible with political democracy to forms that are undemocratic?

Buddhism

Buddhism

Interview with Philosopher Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka

TJ: How do you define Buddhism?

TASAKA: Buddhism is a kind of “cosmology” that can accept various value systems - not only religions but philosophies that exist around the world. Zen Buddhism, especially, is a “philosophy of contradiction” that can accept all the contradictions in our life, because contradiction is an essence of life. An important thing in Buddhism is the ability to keep the contradictions in mind, to keep gazing at them and think about the meaning of the contradictions.

Léonce of Dame-Marie, Haiti

Léonce of Dame-Marie,Haiti: A True Free Man

Something from the ocean, something from the hills

By Marcel DuretCo-author: Kettly Mars

It was four o’clock in the morning, pitch black, cool, and we were about one hour early. When our driver turned off the car’s engine, life seemed suspended to the songs of crickets and the spicy smell of mountain vegetation. It was an eerie moment for a city man like me who is intoxicated with artificial noise day and night. Léonce had promised as a farewell gift to end my three-day stay, that he would take me to “Planò” Hills, a few kilometers south of Dame-Marie, to see where the earth and sky become one. We waited in the darkness, using our cell phones when we needed light, talking and sharing the cassava, avocados and bananas that the generous old man had brought.

KISS Retrospective

KISS Retrospective

On Tour with Bob Gruen

I STARTED working with KISS in 1973 when they signed with Buddah Records, a company I had worked with regularly. Working with KISS proved to be a different experience from most of the bands I had photographed. It’s not just that they wore makeup; the New York Dolls did that too. It was that their makeup created a different identity, as if they were superheroes. Right from the beginning when Buddah’s president, Neil Bogart, wore makeup and had the contract handcuffed to his wrist for the photo announcing their signing, I knew this was an unusual band.

Fashion Design by Junko Koshino

TJ: You are going to Brazil to prepare for an art exhibition. What do you like the most about Brazil?KOSHINO: It has a future. It creates visions one after another, like the World Cup and the Olympic Games.

TJ: What is important for you when working globally?KOSHINO: To act from a global point of view.

TJ: What is the most exciting thing you have experienced abroad?KOSHINO: A show at the Cabaret Tropicana in Cuba and a dinner show in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

A New Place

There is nothing like the first morning in a new, foreign place. At first it seems like any other morning; I’m half asleep and my body and mind has no recollection of the journey last night. Then the magical moment happens. Usually it’s an unfamiliar sound that jolts me out of my dozing state. Where am I? It can take a second before my mind manages to grab the memories. Then it all comes back to me. I feel a surge of joy rush through me. The best part is yet to come. I sink happily back into the pillows and let the cascade of foreign sensations seep in.

Everything is different from back home. The bed, the room, furniture and colors are all different. Even the texture of the sheet gives my skin an unfamiliar sensation. But the immediate surroundings are seldom what excite me. My focus stretches outside. I blend the sounds, scents and what I can glimpse through the window with my imagination.

Yoga Crosses Cultures

ON any given day I interact with people from around the world. I attend meetings with colleagues from France, the Philippines and Bangladesh. I write emails to Japan and make Skype calls to friends in Chile. My neighbors are Greek and my boss is from Egypt. In this diverse but connected world I face the challenges of intercultural communications every day.

A powerful technique in cross-cultural interactions is empathy. Cultivating an empathetic feeling as we interact with friends, colleagues and strangers whose thinking and values differ from our own, helps to widen our perspective on the world. But trying to understand other people’s thoughts and feelings can also have a destabilizing effect on us. Through cross-cultural communication, it’s possible to become vulnerable and get lost in a medley of conflicting values, customs and rules. Empathy needs a force to balance it out.